42 therefore cannot be
insisted upon.

The passage '[in order that He might show that] He came not to
call the righteous but sinners' ([Greek: hina deixae hoti ouk
aelthen kalesai dikaious alla amartolous] [Endnote 74:1]) is
removed by the hypothesis of an interpolation which is supported
by a precarious argument from Origen, and also by the fact that
[Greek: eis metanoian] has been added (clearly from Luke v. 32) by
later hands both to the text of Barnabas and in Matt. ix. 13
[Endnote 74:2]. This theory of an interpolation is easily
advanced, and it is drawn so entirely from our ignorance that it
can seldom be positively disproved, but it ought surely to be
alleged with more convincing reasons than any that are put forward
here. We now possess six MSS. of the Epistle of Barnabas,
including the famous Codex Sinaiticus, the accuracy of which in
the Biblical portions can be amply tested, and all of these six
MSS., without exception, contain the passage. The addition of the
words [Greek: eis metanoian] represents much more the kind of
interpolations that were at all habitual. The interpolation
hypothesis, as I said, is easily advanced, but the _onus
probandi_ must needs lie heavily against it. In accepting the
text as it stands we simply obey the Baconian maxim _hypotheses
non fingimus_, but it is strange, and must be surprising to a
philosophic mind, to what an extent the more extreme representatives
of the negative criticism have gone back to the most condemned
parts of the scholastic method; inconvenient facts are explained
away by hypotheses as imaginary and unverifiable as the 'cycles
and epicycles' by which the schoolmen used to explain the motions
of the heavenly bodies.

'If however,' the author continues, 'the passage 'originally
formed part of the text, it is absurd to affirm that it is any
proof of the use or existence of the first Gospel.' 'Absurd' is
under the circumstances a rather strong word to use; but, granting
that it would have been even 'absurd' to allege this passage, if
it had stood alone, as a sufficient proof of the use of the
Gospel, it does not follow that there can be any objection to the
more guarded statement that it invests the use of the Gospel with
a certain antecedent probability. No doubt the quotation
_may_ have been made from a lost Gospel, but here again
[Greek: eis aphanes ton muthon anenenkas ouk echei elenchon]--
there is no verifying that about which we know nothing. The criti